boy.'
'You've made a mistake. We've been trying-' Will stopped himself when he saw Beth's face. She was smiling and crying at the same time.
'It's true, Will. I finally got to use that tester I've carried around in my bag for so long. It's true. We're going to have a baby.'
'You see,' said Rabbi Freilich. 'Your wife didn't know she was pregnant. But the Torah knew. The Torah told us. It was the Rebbe's last message, given to Yosef Yitzhok in his dying hours. Nobody realized it at the time but his last words led us to the thirty-sixth verse — from the Book of Genesis, the book of new beginnings. This one verse — the tenth verse of the eighteenth chapter — was kept separate from all the others; not written down in any of the Rebbe's papers or speeches.
No one could have picked it up from our computers. But we counted off the letters in the usual way and it brought us a location: your home. At first we assumed that meant the tzaddik was you. But then Yosef Yitzhok looked closer at the words themselves. That verse describes the moment when God speaks to Abraham and tells him his wife, Sarah, is to have a son. She had been childless so long, yet she was to have a child. Yosef Yitzhok understood what the Rebbe was telling us. We weren't to look at you, but your wife. We found the hidden of the hidden, Will. And he is your son.'
Will pulled Beth towards him. But as they hugged, he felt something dig into his chest through the bandages. He heard the words of the vicar, repeated in his ears. We've bound your wounds. I hope your pain is easing.
Will ripped open his shirt and tore off the bandages underneath.
He cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid!
He had followed the script exactly as the vicar had laid it out for him. Try instead to light the way — and that was exactly what he had done. Sure enough, there it was, concealed between the bandages: a simple wire, tipped at one end by a microphone and at the other by a tiny transmitter.
A second, maybe two, passed before they knocked down the door. As it smashed against the wall, Will saw a blur with only two distinct features: a pair of laser-blue eyes and the barrel of a revolver, sheathed in a silencer. Instinct rather than judgment made Will shield Beth. He stole a glance at his watch. Nine minutes to go.
Rabbi Freilich and the woman of the house froze, petrified.
Laser Eyes barely looked at them.
Thank you, William. You did what we asked.'
The voice was not the gunman's, but belonged to the figure behind him, now stepping into the room. The sound of it made Will's brain flood. He realized he was looking at the head of the Church of the Reborn Jesus, the man behind the murder of thirty-five of the most virtuous people on earth, the man who wanted to bring about nothing less than the end of the world. And yet the face he was staring at was one he had known forever.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Monday, 7.33pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
'Hello, William.'
Will could feel his head pounding. The room seemed to spin. Beth, cowering behind him, grabbed his wrist and gasped.
Rabbi Freilich, the woman — everyone was frozen.
'What? What are you… I don't understand.'
'I don't blame you, Will. How could you possibly understand?
I never explained any of this to you. Nor to your mother either. Not in any way she could understand.'
'But, I don't, I don't…' Will was stammering. Nonsensically he said, 'But you're my father.'
'I am, Will. But I am also the leader of this movement. I am the Apostle. And you have just rendered us the greatest possible service, as I knew you would. You have brought us to the last of the just. For that alone, you have earned your place in the world to come.'
Will was blinking, like a fugitive dazzled by headlights. He could not compute what he was seeing or hearing.
His father. How could his father, a man of the law and justice, be the architect of so many cruel, needless deaths? Did his father, a stern rationalist, really believe all that replacement theology, all that stuff about becoming God's chosen people, about the end of the world? Of course he must believe it: but how had he hidden it all these years, convincing the world that he was a man whose only god was the legal code and the United States Constitution? Had his father really drawn up a plan to strangle and shoot three dozen good men, the last best hope of humanity?
For less than a second, an image popped into his head. It was the face of someone he had not seen in years. It was his grandmother, serving tea in her garden back in England. The sun was shining, but all he could focus on was her mouth, as she uttered the words which had intrigued him at the time and ever since: Your father's other great passion. So this was it. The force that came between his parents, both so young. It was not another woman nor even his father's dedication to the law. It was his faith. His fanaticism.
Will had so many questions, but he asked only one.
'So you knew all along, all this time, about Beth?' As he said it, his arms went backward, shielding his wife from both sides.
'Oh, I had nothing to do with that, William. That was your Jewish friends' initiative, theirs alone.' Monroe Sr gestured towards Rabbi Freilich. 'But once you told me Beth was kidnapped, I had my suspicions. Once you had tracked her captors down to Crown Heights, I knew for certain. It took me a while to work it out. At first, I wondered if it was somehow meant to stop you working on the story. You were doing so well — first Howard Macrae, then Pat Baxter — it seemed you were about to discover everything. But then I realized that the Hassidim had not taken Beth to stop you.
That would make no sense. They had taken her to stop me. And there could only be one explanation. They needed to give her shelter because she was shelter — the shelter of the thirty-sixth righteous man.'
'You knew what was going on, but you didn't help me, you didn't-'
'No, William. I wanted you to help me. I knew you would not rest until you had found Beth and, in so doing, you would bring us to her. And I was right.'
Will was struggling to stay standing. The room was beginning to turn. His lungs seemed to be emptying of air. He could only manage a few words. 'This is madness.'
'You think this is madness? Do you have even the first idea of what's going on here?'
'I think you're murdering the righteous of the earth.'
'Well, I wouldn't use those words, William. I surely would not. But I want you to look more widely, to see the whole picture.' It was a tone Will had never heard before, or not until an hour ago at any rate. It was the voice of a strict teacher who expected to be obeyed. Whatever electronic voice distortion had been used in the Chapel at the convention centre, it had not concealed this tone: the authority of the Apostle.
'You see, Christianity understands what Judaism never could: what the Jews stubbornly refused to understand. They did not see what was staring them in the face! They believed that, so long as there were thirty- six just souls in the world, all would be well. They took comfort from the idea. They did not realize its true power.'
'And what is its true power?' It was Rabbi Freilich.
'That if these thirty-six men uphold the world, then the opposite must be true! The instant the thirty-six are gone, the world is no more.' Monroe Sr turned back to face his son. 'You see, that didn't interest the Jews. They thought if the world ended, then that would be that. It would all be over: death, destruction, the end of the story. But Christianity teaches us something else, doesn't it William? Something glorious and infinite! For we Christians are blessed with a sacred knowledge: we know that the end of the world spells the final reckoning. And now we discover that all we have to do to make that happen — to make absolutely sure that happens — is to end the lives of thirty-six people.
'If we can do that before the Ten Days of Penitence are complete, the true Judgment Day will be upon us. It's as simple and beautiful as that.'
